Thursday, August 27, 2009

Originally created in 1957 as "Atoms for Peace" under the umbrella of the United Nations, this organization has the mighty task of stopping, reducing, or at least minimizing, the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world. If they find something that isn't kosher, what exactly is the level of punitive action that they take? Does this organization have any bite in these critical times, or does it carry the same swagger as the United Nations Security Council.

(IAEA) "The IAEA Statute specifies a number of actions, discretionary or obligatory, in cases of a breach of a safeguards agreement: alerting the international community (the Board of Governors of the IAEA, all Member States of the IAEA, the United Nations Security Council, the General Assembly of the United Nations); curtailing any IAEA assistance being provided to the State concerned; and suspending the privileges and rights the State derived from IAEA membership.

Once alerted, the international community may wish to take additional measures seen as necessary to induce a State to comply with its undertakings."

Sounds like toothless rhetoric to me, and of little worry to a rogue state bent on attaining nuclear weapons. More of a nuisance and tool to be manipulated.

Iran Playing The Placating Game

Ahead of talks that are soon to be held by certain members of the world community to discuss sanctions against Iran for its' nuclear weapons ambitions, Iran, playing a cat and mouse game, has apparently slowed the expansion of its' nuclear program. This is the expected result from a U.N. inspectors report expected to be released today.

For anyone with the capacity for thought, this is a ruse designed by Iran to buy itself time. A decoy to give some governments the ability to sit back and not have to think about a response. Decision by omission and not by commission is still a decision, albeit not the correct one.

Iran denies this, saying it is refining uranium only for electricity so it can export more oil. But it has no nuclear power plants to use the low-enriched material it is stockpiling.

To help win over Russia and China, Western powers want the IAEA to release with the report a classified summary of its inquiry into Western intelligence reports alleging Iran illicitly studied how to design a nuclear bomb, diplomats said.

A diplomat close to the IAEA said this was being considered, after a year of Iranian stonewalling that has stalled the inquiry, with Tehran dismissing the intelligence material as forgeries.

But the IAEA has no evidence showing undeniably that Iran has a bomb agenda, he said, and IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei was loath to publish the summary for fear it could be used for political ends and make the agency look biased against Iran..."

It is exactly this type of anemic oversight and cowardice by the IAEA that has the effect of putting all of the world in jeopardy.

IAEA Vienna Conference September 14th

This brings us to the IAEA Conference to be held in Vienna on September 14. At this meeting the NAM, or Non-Aligned Movement, is seeking to add an item to the agenda that appears to be directly aimed at Israel and the United States. The item is as follows:

A generally worded statement prohibiting an attack on any nuclear installation around the world.

Will this stop those countries who know of the existence of a nuclear weapons capability, or a soon to be attained nuclear weapons capability, from taking it out? Absolutely not! But for the two countries who will have that obligation (under the assumption no others would step up), any document proposed by Iran and signed by others in the world would be one more P.R. piece of trash. The world needs to wake up and realize that time is ticking away and that once Iran achieves the ability to weaponize uranium, the genie, as they say, cannot be put back into the bottle.

And it will not only be Israel and the United States that will be targets. A true line in the sand has to be drawn, and that line will not be drawn by either the IAEA or the U.N. It is up to the world community to man up, and not wait for the other guy (meaning the U.S. and Israel) to take care of things while they hide behind their mothers skirts with cover from some document they sign. The United States has been, and will continue to be the worlds policeman, but it is time for the rest of the world to step up as well.

The likelihood is actually that the U.S., under President Obama will work the diplomatic and negotiation route to death (hopefully just a cliche and not an eventuality) before we would ever consider a military strike. Israel, through necessity, will operate unilaterally, bi-laterally or any other way to preserve its' existence and insure no nukes in Iran.

The same nuclear weapons capability that the world nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, cannot be sure exists.

The difference between the IAEA and the UN? Mainly, it is that the IAEA is a core group of scientists and engineers from around the world, who, with the help of data gathered throughout the nuclear era, attempt to meet ANY nuclear emergency. The cancer intervention and prevention programs designed and funded by the IAEA address the misery of thousands of men, women, and children around the world, while the IAEA compiles ever more data on radiation treatment and accident prevention in its libraries and labs.

You won't see members of the UN Security Council in the wreckage of the earthquake and tsunami trying to save Japan's nuclear reactors or give their health and possibly their lives for the survival of the people of Japan and, ultimately, many other nations.

I wept this week to see the simple notes from IAEA people who stood in regular clothes, absorbing many times the recommended radiation, as they discussed plans of action outdoors in the danger zone because the IAEA offices in Japan had become unsafe. What did they write? That they were sorry not to be able to work faster because of lack of power and that they hadn't been able to transmit as much data to the IAEA offices around the world to enlist more aid. Not a single complaint about the radiation, further earthquake danger, and lack of supplies--just "sorry we haven't done better but we're working on it." Where do you think the "experts" working in Japan came from? Who had the full data on the reactors after offices were destroyed--who kept the specifications and had emergency plans on file, in case of a tsunami or an earthquake? Who immediately offered expert relief and aid to the workers in the emergency? Was it the UN? Was it you?

IAEA specialists are always the second--if not the first--in the line of defense against a nuclear attack or accident ANYWHERE. If a nuclear accident does NOT kill you or me, we will probably have a deceased IAEA specialist--and his grieving family--to thank. I write this because I'd prefer to give these wonderful scientists their thanks while they are living--as well as the respect they deserve.

That's why, when IAEA specialists walked Iraq and said there were no nuclear weapons, I believed them. Why? Because they were the guys who would be there FIRST if there were. I knew the president, the administration, and my fine fellow citizens would all be sitting around watching those guys be irradiated on TV if they were wrong. It MATTERED to them more than anyone, except to maybe their kids.

If Israel starts a fight with a nation having nuclear capacity, it is the IAEA specialists who will be there to clean up the mess. They may even figure out how some of us could survive such a disaster. They work at protecting us every day.

I'm sure that your remarks were not intended to be thoughtless or disrespectful: many people don't know the true nature of this exceptional group of scientists. It is because more people may soon NEED to know that I write. Let's support their work and understand the urgency of their efforts for peace. They're only trying to save the lives of innocent people, and more of us need to support their efforts!

Thanks for taking an interest in the facts...

P.S. Since I don't usually post online, I was unsure of how to do it well. Just call me "Vet's Kid."